The ICR is a recurring gathering of dance artists and scholars who work in the area of Indigenous dance. We gather on the current and ancestral land of the Cahuilla, Tongva, Serrano, Luiseño (Payómkawichum), Cupeño and Kumeyaay Peoples, where the University of California, Riverside is located. Once a year (sometimes every 18 months) Indigenous dance artists and Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars come together for a day, or a few days, or sometimes a couple of weeks, to share dances, ideas, and teachings with each other and with the UC Riverside and surrounding community. What happens in each ICR depends on what is needed, who is coming, what funding is available. Each year we are doing something we have never done before- building something that has not yet been built – and so we don’t know quite what it will be until we are here together, doing it, though we have a focus, and an intention. Often, beautiful things happen, moments of joy and clarity and excitement and connection. We study, we share, we move and play. We talk and listen (and listen more). We stay curious, and critical, and kind. Sometimes we stumble and misstep, and things are difficult. And then we pause, build our stamina to regroup, reconsider, and clear a better path for the next time. Sometimes our stamina waivers, and we swear there won’t be a next time. And then people start to ask – when is the next time? – and so we start to wonder again. “We” includes whoever shows up, but at the center are those Indigenous dance artists specifically invited—which depends on our focus and resources – and those who hear about the gathering, and come to be part. Everyone is welcome, and all public events are free, though sometimes our space is limited. Sometimes we have an “outcome” (in 2015, we shared writing for a special issue of DRJ on “Indigenous Dance Today.” In 2018 we shared writing for a proposed anthology). Usually the gatherings are themselves the outcome, with ongoing reverberations in many of our lives. — Jacqueline Shea Murphy, ICR founder and co-organizer
Advisory Circle
Lorene Sisquoc
Michael Madrigal
Jack Gray
Tamara Ho
Rachell Enriquez
Jacqueline Shea Murphy and María Regina Firmino-Castillo, co-organizers and coordinators
Cinthia Duran Larrea, assistant coordinator
Photo credit: Indigenous Choreographers at Riverside 2015/Jonathan Godoy